Google to fix map image showing slain boy

San Francisco — Google officials said Monday that the company will replace a satellite image that a Richmond, California man says shows the body of his slain 14-year-old son.

Kevin Barrera was shot and killed on Aug. 15, 2009 near railroad tracks in North Richmond. Unbeknownst to the police and homicide detectives that swarmed the scene, a satellite photo was taken that day — a photo that has since been used as the Google Maps image of the area.

KTVU first reported that his father, Jose Barrera, learned of the image only a few days ago. It shows a body lying on the ground, and a police squad car and several officers nearby. The image was still up as of Monday afternoon.

Richmond police spokeswoman Sgt. Nicole Abetkov said homicide detectives who were on scene have confirmed that the image does in fact depict the crime scene that day and the body on the ground is actually Kevin Barrera.

Barrera’s case is still open, she said.

Jose Barrera told KTVU that he wanted Google to take the images down out of respect for his son’s memory.

“When I see this image, that’s still like that happened yesterday,” he said.

Brian McClendon, vice president of Google Maps, said the company will replace the image, and hopes to do so by the end of the month.

“Our hearts go out to the family of this young boy,” he said in a statement. “Since the media first contacted us about the image, we’ve been looking at different technical solutions. Google has never accelerated the replacement of updated satellite imagery from our maps before, but given the circumstances we wanted to make an exception in this case. We believe we can update this in eight days, and we’ve spoken to the family to let them know we’re working hard on the update.”